Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 2 October 1951 — Page 10
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~The Indianapolis Times
A SCRIPPS-HOWARD NEWSPAPER
ROY W. HOWARD WALTER LECKRONE HENRY W. MANZ Business Manager
Tuesday, Oct. 2, 1951
President ® Editor
PAGE 0°
Owned and : ing Co., 214 W. Mary United
fce and Audit Bureau of Circulation
“Dirty Feathers in the Nest
AST WEEK President Truman: took personal charge of suspending the internal revenue ¢ llector in San Fran‘eisco. At the same time, eight subordinates of this collector
were suspended.
Previously, a series of indictments had been handed up by grand juries against other employees of this office. One of the supervisors in the San Francisco office last week tried to commit suicide, and confessed to altering his records. Another has admitted embezzlement. Recently, the internal revenue collector in Boston was fired. and later indicted. The St. Louis collector quit under fire last spring, and his name since has been a headliner in congressional investigations of monkey-business in other
government agencies.
The former chief field agent for the Internal Revenue
Bureau in Nevada has been indicted.
= x , » ” ” THE New York office of the Internal Revenue Bureau has undergone a series of shakeups. Several deputies have been suspended and the head of the alcohol tax unit there has admitted private dealings with companies subject to the
~5Wings of his agency. cA
TE TE 0 Y
“Nearly a year
"
ington officials “months ago
Yet only now does’ the Truman administration take the "initiative. It has always been up to grand juries and cangressional inquiries to bring out most of the evidence. : The internal revenue law requires the utmost secrecy in handling individual taxpayers’ returns. But the law doesn’t say the bureau must hide its own misdeeds. That has been the general policy—to hush up almost anything about the
activities of the bureau and its employees.
THIS bureau needs a thorough overhaul. But it is not enough to clean out the employees who have been lining their own nests with dirty feathers. It needs a new policy, * sizing a conscientious sense of public responsibility. When a taxpayer pays his money to his government he is entitled to be certain that his cash actually reaches the Treasury and that all other taxpayers are paying their fair i that assurance is established beyond all doubt, the Internal Revenue Bureau cannot expect to enjoy any sub-
stantial degree of public confidence.
Going Our Way
KYO press reports say that the U. 8. and Japanese governments are making progress on the agreement for American retention of military bases and troops in
Japan. That is encouraging nCwvs.
The separate defense pact details to be worked out by the two countries is one of the delicate and difficult problems left in the wake of the over-all peace treaty...
signed last month in San Francisco.
Much depends on the attitude of the independent Japanese, faced with the proposition that a U. 8. armed garrison shall stay on indefinitely in their country after it has regained its sovereignty. A further touchy provision would permit the American troops to act as internal police over Japan itself if the Tokyo government should request it. The Chinese Communists were quick to exploit this, contending that the United States was rearming Japan “for aggression in Asia, as part of the American post-war expansionist policy.” The Peiping radio played heavily on the theme that Japan was not regaining her freedom in such circumstances, and by that argument has sought to turn the new, independent nation against the United
. States. :
” . 5. EVIDENTLY the Reds are making no headway. Tokyo papers say that under the agreement taking shape, there is to be no limit on the troops we keep in Japan, nor any specification on the kind of arms they bear. Presumably this would include the atom bomb or tactical
atomic weapons. )
The Japanese know, of course, that it is not American “expansion” they need to fear, but rather Communist aggression; and that they are in the front line of expanding Communist aims. They know too they can depend on ug for defense of their country if the Reds move in their direction. So it is only reasonable that they should put no obstacles in the way of our retaining adequate troops
and bases in their country.
Early ratification of the security pact by Tokyo would be welcome reassurance in the United States that Japan is confident of our good intentions and that she is paying no heed to the propaganda which is trying to drive a wedge between her and the Western world.
No. 1 Watchdog
OBODY needs a sharp-eyed watchdog looking over his ghoulder more than the average government spender. And that goes for the military—perhaps especially for the
military. ”
Fe. military spending makes up the overwhelming pro-
portion of the federal budget.
Downey Rice.
Mr. Rice is an experiericed FBI agent, a former assift-: ant U. 8. attorney and until recently a top man on the staff of the Senate Crime Investigating Committee. He is a first-
class investigator. The huge defense
"as dollars
0 search naustrious) 0
blished dally by Indiana land St. Postal 1 ess, Scripps-Howard Newspaper -Allianc
Price In Marion County 5 cents a copy lor daily and 10e for Sunday: delivered by carrier daily and Sunday | 35 week. daily only .25¢, Sunday only 10c Mail rates in ir giana dally and Sunday, $10.00 a vear. daily. $500 a year Sunday only. $5.00; all other states. U. 8. possessions Mexico. daily, $1.10 a month. Sunday. 10e a copy.
Telephone PL aza 5551 Give [Aght and the People Will Fina Their Own Way
HE RG CART Crime Commission filed a report showing gross irregulari in the San Francisco Internal Revenue Office. Thereafter t €: Kefauver committee turned up similar evidence. This evidence, according to Sen. Estes Kefauver, was given to Wash-
The Senate subcommittee on preparedness, which already has done useful work in pin-pointing weaknesses in the defense program, now has taken on the dollar-watching assignment. To head up the job, the committee has named
program, as Chairman | Lyndon Johnson of the committee says, ‘is bound ~~ to attract chiselers, spend-thrifts, grafters and blue sky ~~, artists willing to profit from their country’s dire need.” © Dollars unnecessarily spent are as treacherously lost
stolem. As a spotter of waste, Mr. Rice can be
is
Jy
California Cri WASHINGTON, Oct. 2 — The story of James Smyth, suspended by President Truman as collector of internal revenue at San Francisco for “incompetence.” began almost a year ago
when the California Crime Commission charged -
tha a strange relationship existed between ‘the criminal element and certain officials in the Bureau of Internal Revenue.’ ; The crime commission, appointed by Gav. Earl Warren to look into racketeering,.gambling, narcotic traffic and other crimes, had discovered that underworld ‘characters were paying cash for expensive homes and living on a scale which apparently would have been impossible if they had been paying their income taxes, ‘ It found that no hoodlum or gangster had ever been convicted of income tax fraud in California. a
Wd a
LOOKING further. it found that one deputy in the collector's office in northern California, was in partnership with a convicted white slaver; that a keeper of another house of -prostitution "had been asked by a deputy collector
for $500 and other sums, and that the demands’
had been written on Treasury stationery, with a government franked envelope enclosed for reply. The commission discovered that other officials were involved in a plan to sell worthless stock in.a Nevada mining company to persons whose tax returns were being investigated, and that apparently no legal action was taken against persons who bought the stock. Next chapter in tha) story was written when the Kefauver committee held hearings in San Francisco. It heard testimony amplifying and sustaining the charges of the California commission and indicating that the surface had barely been scratched,
DEFENSE . . . By Ludwell Denny Allies Simmer In Hot Greece
WARHINGTON, Oct. 2 Greece's political
THE SMYTH AFFAIR . . . By Ruth Finney
feuding, weak government and ecénomic ex---
tremity, just when the Allies have decided to
take her irito the Atlantic Defense Pact, are -
worrying Washington. Another hamstrung coalition cabinet, fol- . lowed by another bitter election campaign within a few months, is in prospéct. There is no assurance that the next election will be any more decisive than last month's stalemate, whieh shattered hopes here of a strong Athens government for a change. : King Paul apparently ,has finally rejected demands of ‘Marshal Alexander Papagos, head of the largest party, for an immediate election which his new Greek: Rally Party probably would win. Papagos, keeping his campaign pledge against joining with any old line politicians, refuses the King’s
: King Paul ++. rejected demands
invitation to form a three-party coalition with -
his closest competitors. 80 Gen. Nicholas Plastiras of the National Progressive Centrist Union and acting Premier Sophocles Venizelos of the Liberals are expected to combine in a cabinet with a six-vote parliamentary majority. At best they will not have enough strength to put through needed domestic reforms. They never. can count on all their own party members, and therefore at times may be dependent on the pro-Communist Leftist Union's support. What has happened in Greece is a political upheaval of parties and leaders without, however, changing the close balance between factions under new names. Thus the once leading Populist Party under ex-Premier Constantin Isaldaris has lost all of its pariiamentary seats except two to the new right wing “Rally” of Marshal Papagos, World War II and civil war hero. While an older hero of the Turk War of 1922. Gen. Plastiras, has emerged as the strongest leader of the non-Communist left. Marshal Papagos thinks another election now would give him an absolute majority, .compared with his 45 per cent of seats from the Sept. 9 polling. The King would not like that—Papagos resigned as commander-in-chief last summer in
protest against the King's alleged political interference, : -
In Bad Shape :
ALMOST everyone agrees Greece cannot afford the fierce factionalism which increases the weakness of that desperately poor and exposed land. Just two weeks ago the United Nations special committee on the Balkans reported
that Stalin is training fifth columnists and
guerrillas in his satellite states for another .
“civil war” in Greece. Despite - the quarter of a billion dollars a year of economic aid which America has been
pouring into the country-on top of the half
billion dollar total of military aid Greece is in bad shape. Her politicians prediet ruin if there is a cut in American aid, as necessitated
by congressional reductions in the Truman pro-
gram. . Meanwhile no Athens government is in sight
with the power and courage to eliminate padded -
payrolls, favoritism and inefficiency which reduce the recovery results of Marshall aid dollars. That leaves Greece an insecure democratic base for herself and the Allies, despite the unquestioned patriotism of her. 140,000 troops if war comes,
SIDE GLANCES
Commission Put It questioned Smyth about a .discovery .it made that intelligen¢e units of the bureau had recommended against his appointment as collector because of various charges against him, including one that he and his wife had not filed income tax returns or paid taxes they owed the government. *s ’ * hb SMYTH denied everything. So did Washington officials of the bureau and Treasury and
+ Justice officials ‘when they were questioned by
the Kefauver committee and various other
groups. \
There ‘began a long tug of war between the administration, and San Francisco Democratic Party officials on the one hand, and various investigating bodies on the other, with the administration giving ground.an inch at a time. Some
Big Man on Campus
a rl
of. the San®Franeisco deputies were susperrded and later indicted. vo oe An assistant United States attorney in San Francisco tried to take the story before a grand jury in San Francisco, without consent of his
superiors “in office. A federal judge intervened™
to prevent his presentation, and dismissed the grand jury, over’ the protests of its foreman. Another grand jury began work, and was instructed by the presiding judge that it must not do any outside investigating on its own, but must hear only witnesses brought to it by the United States attorney. * > 0» . SAN FRANCISCO Bar Association members began to question this procedure and brought-it to the attention of officials .in Congress and at high judicial levels. : :
rea ee FADD TEANTRA RNS
AH, AUTUMN . . . By Frederick C. Othman Washington: A Jangle of Nerves minizniiiaiz er
WASHINGTON, Oct: 2—Now is the time for
tourists to visit Washington. The climate's superb and the scenery’s beautiful. Everything's red, from the leaves of the dogwoods to the
. eyes of the Senators.
So what happens” The tourists, who suffered the tortures of the damned during | Washington's summer, have gone away. There's nobody left but us natives—and maybe a few tax collectors called on the carpet to explain certain fiscal monkevshines back home. Out McLean, Va, way, where 1 live, there's a nip in the air. My fireplace felt elegant last night. Most of the leaves still ‘are green, but a some are gold” while the dogwood are scarlet. It'll be nearly a month before 1 have to start raking. > 4 We are suffering from a ‘drought, but that shouldn't bother visitors. Only us old residents worry about that. The stream through my pasture has dried up like the Los ‘Angeles River and I have to haul water for Tommy, the
horse. This strikes him as funny and he has.
developed a thirst like a herd of elephants. One of my neighbors got to pondering his dusty ducks. They looked unhappy. One day he pumped water into their pond. His well went dry. He had to borrow water next door; there was nothing in the house with which to wash his face, except frozen orange juice, Emma, our poodle,” has produced with pride eight handsome pups. three apricot-colored like herself and five coal black like their pop. Mrs. 0. now is in the dog business; she figures poodles ought to be more profitable than chickens, item for item, and a good deal less trouble. Most of the year I leave this rural scene reluctantly every morning, but autumn has hit the big city, too, and I wouldn't miss the goings-on. Take those lawgivers. They've been through a rough summer. Now they're shedding their manners, like trees losing leaves. They're tired. . Their nerves are jangled.
WASHINGTON, Oct, 2— President Harry 8. Truman is not only beginning to talk very much like a candidate to succeed himself in 1953. He is also beginning to talk a good bit like Herbert Hoover did when he was President in early 1920. That—if you're old enough to remember was just before the crash.
Hoover's two cars in every garage and two pots on every chicken. President Truman started talking like that in his speech ‘at the General Accounting Office cornerstone laying. . “The country is stronger economically than it has ever been: before. - Its people are more - prosperous,” said the President.
One of them even suggested the other day that they should reduce their own salaries. He barely escaped. with his life. ~McCarthy; Sen. Joe, is in the midst of =o many investigations involving a lawsuit, alleged Communists, and his own right to stay in the Senate, that he's got to keep his dates, hour
* by hour, in a small black book.
Just a Bunch of Bulls
THE GENTLEMEN trading insults these
days are something to hear. They're like bulls in the Madrid ring, where the fight only gets interesting in its latter stages .after the bull really becomes irritated. And the 82d Congress, it hopes, is about done for. The White House at long last is about ready to have its snapshot taken. The $5 million we spent to make the place safe for Presidents is nearly all spent; and the Trumans should be moving in again in another couple of months. The president of a big paint company (whom
I shall not name because I am a kindly fellow) -
had an idea in connection with the executive mansion. Said he'd provide all the paint for the house free, if the management would let him advertise it. Then he tried a succession of 5 percenters to put his proposition up diplomatically to Mr. T's helpers. None-of ‘'em had the nerve. The White House is being decorated with unadvertised, paid-for-paint. This suits me fine. Even in my charitable, autumnal mood I'm all caught up with local gifts like hams, television sets, food. freezers,
. mink coats and French perfumes, with strings
attached. .
" “THE VACANT HOUSE"
Each time I pass a vacant house . . . I pause to think awhile . . . about the former occupants . . . that once lived there in style ... I gaze at barrén rooms and halls . . . where song and laughter rung . . . I look upon the window panes
. . where Xmas wreaths were hung 7. . I ponder as I look at shreds . . . of paper on the wall . . . I delve upon and marvel at . |.
the fireplace so tall . . . I think of children’s teardrops . . . that once fell upon the floor . . . and of the many human souls . . . that passed through the great door . .. and then my eyes gaze from the ground . . . up to the chimney high . . . and I think of how the housa once Mved . . . lived only just to die.—Ben Burroughs
By Galbraith 2 HENS IN EVERY POT? . . . By Peter Edson
Harry T. Sounds a Bit Like H. Hoover
» —
Finger On U. S. Revenue Bureau J
Meanwhile, Congress had appointed two come mittees specifically. to look into administration of ‘the Internal Revenue Bureau : Scandals in collectors’ offices in other parts of the country began to break, Collector James Finnegan was removed ‘in St. Louis, Denis Delaney was removed In Boston, George Schoeneman, commissioner of internal revenues in Washington, resigned ‘for reasons of health,” and was given a big farewell party by top administration officials. His chief deputy, Danjel Bolich also moved out, Meanwhile, in’ ‘San Francisco, the lagging grand jury seemed to- be getting information that something was wrong whether it wanted it or not Newspaper articles were printed indicating an attempt at extortion, back-dating of returns slipped in just.ahead of intelligence unit investigations, and channeling of underworld tax cases to a prominent Democratic politician and attorney, The King subcommittee of the House Ways and Means Committee sent an investigator to San ‘Francisco: the Senate Finance Committees subpenaed and brought 'to Washington Charles O'Gara, the U. S..attorney who had tried to present the case originally to a grand jury and had in the meanwhile been removed by his
- superiors from the criminal division.
Smyth was quietly asked for his resignation
‘when the story seemed to be getting out of
control but he declined to resign. Local politicians backed him up and administration offi. cials ‘agreed to try to ride out the storm with
him.
Finally, the chief of the accounts saction in the Wage and Excise Tax Division of the San Francisco office tried to commit suicide Wednesday night. The story broke in San Francisco, along with the fact that he had confessed altering accounts in the division. Another employee confessed embezzling $5000. & & THE administration. was under heavy fire, at the same time, from disclosures about Na-. tional Democratic Chairman William Boyle, and other top Democrats. A decision was finally
. made that they could sit on the lid no longer,
on the Smyth situation.
pension of Smyth and C Th4s1OnEY OF IHTETTIA Revenue Dunlap announced suspension of eight other officials in the San Francisco office, prom-
; ising to refer all data on them to the Depart-
ment of Justice for submission to the San Francisco grand jury or for other action. Meanwhile, Rep, Cecil King (D. Cal), chair man of the House Investigating Subcommittee, commented on the Smyth suspension: : . “We still plan a full-scale investigation oyt there. We are concerned about maladministration, inefficiency and corruption in the Washington headquarters as it relates to maladministration, inefficiency and corruption in the field. It is difficult to understand how these conditions can exist in the field without the full knowledge of the Washington Offices of Interna] Revenue.” Before becoming collector, Smyth had been campaign manager for former Sen. Sheridan Downey, and his wife .was in charge of Mr. Downey's San Francisco office until the Senator's term expired. Since then she has been in the office of c William Malone, chairman of San Francisco's Democratic County Central Committee, and probably the most powerful Democrat in northern California. John A. Malone, one of those suspended Thursday, is a brother of William Maione. Democrats had intended to ryn Smyth for mayor of 8an Francisco, and had fought hard
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Hoosier Forum
"| do not agree with a word that you say, but | will defend to the death your rig to say it."—VYoltaire.
CREE RNR ERENT REN RRR RRR TR RRR R ARE r tren tun]
‘Street Is in a Mess’ MR. EDITOR: > Will you give us a hand in getting action from the city street maintenance department? A few days ago you ran a letter from a North Side woman complaining about the bad condition of Kessler Boulevard from College Ave. to
~ Keystone St. The other morning, waiting for a
bus, I had reason to confirm this complaint, as Kessler was one big puddle after another. The cars going by splashed everyone standing on the curb. Since that pipeline was laid a month ago this street is A mess and our officials don't seem to know about it or care. . What will the excuse be this time? Bad weather coming soon, or if we have to wait longer it will be hot again. There seems to be no one who looks after this street. It's impossible now with all that dirt piled up on the side to even walk there because of the mud. One can imagine what the condition will be when we get snow and ley weather. I have a good notion to. drag some of our street commissioners out of their overstuffed chairs and have them splashed from head to foot out here. That might wake them up. ® : —L. K. Simon, City
FOSTER'S FOLLIES
BROOKYLN, N. Y.--Three youths admitted they were members of a gang which had stolen thirty-one bicycles in the last four months. The fast wheels of justice are starting to turn They'll handle these guys at the bar. : Smooth, straight, narrow paths they elected to spurn For roads which can never lead far. The moval well framed here for all those who n - Toward ill-gotten gains to aspire: — A cycle like that's quickly braked in the end As in dudgeon you shortly re-tire!
on
Things today are just tool good. Better even than Mr. %
This. press conference was one for the book. It was not one of the usual “No comment” and “You'll get your answer in due time” sessions; all over in five minutes. It ran for nearly half an hour and the President really sang. He hit every note. Taxes, Russia, San Francisco, ‘Ottawa, peace, diplomacy, force, atoms, McCarran, McCarthy, Bill Boyle, the Illinois . judgeships, Republican smears, the budget, the defense program, Brannan plan. Next year’s Democratic platform, which Mr. Truman said he would write. : If the President came close
- to shoving his hat into the ring
in his talk to Democratic workers at San Francisco, he all but crawled under that hat inthis press conference. ; ~ Either Mr. Truman has al-
ready opened his campaign or - else he's working awfully hard
to build up a case that will
‘enable any successor he might
pick to walk into office behind
. him.
” » ” : ALMOST every government
statistic that has been handed living out In recent weeks has con-
For the first seven months of 1951, personal income was at the annudl rate of $248 billion, one-seventh above the corresponding period for. last year, according to Department of Commerce, Income from farm properties over the first seven months was 30 per cent above the corresponding period of 1950. From January to July, publicly reported cash dividends were over $4.1 billion, or 13 per cent above the first seven
- months of 1950, according to
Office of Business Economics, Department of Commerce, In spite of Regulation X restrictions, housing ‘starts in the first eight months this year were 758500 units, reports Department “of Labor. This is higher than for any similar period except in the record year of 1950. Anyway, 1951 looks like another million-unit
Year,
) TC ‘a SECURITIES and Exchange Commission estimates indus-
- trial plant expansion this year
at $25. billion. . This is an alltime record, but it is expected to be maintained through 1952, In spite of the high cost of
»
Interior Secretary Osea he Chapman, speaking before
American Federation of Labor in San Francisco, calls atten~ tion to civilian employment of 62.5 million, one-third more industrial plant than in 1946 five million ‘new homes built since the war, college enrollment up 25 per cent excluding Gls, a one-fifth increase in the per capita consumption of neat plus substantial increases n consumption of eggs, Itry, milk, vegetables a including spinach, Industrial workers average over $60 a » » ”
AND THE stock market cone tinues generally upward, If all this is an accurate pic ture of life in these United’ States today, a lot of the prophets of gloom around here are cockeyed. Or else this is the grand and glorious exhilaration at the start of an inflationary jag that could end im
, an awful headache. “
‘inflation. But like champagne, and paying taxes, Fed- the stuff is
_ Political fortunes can rise and fall on the ups and downs
of these curves in the next 13 .
months. Everyone likes a little
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